The French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre meditates on the relationship between jouissance, space, and architecture. Commissioned as a part of a study on tourist new towns in ...
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The French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre meditates on the relationship between jouissance, space, and architecture. Commissioned as a part of a study on tourist new towns in Spain, the book identifies spaces devoted to pleasure, enjoyment, sensuality, and desire as sites where the possibilities for a society moving beyond Fordism are manifested. In order to study these possibilities, architecture needs to be redefined as a mode of imagination rather than being restricted to a specialized practice or a collection of monuments. Taking the practices of habitation as the starting point of the inquiry, Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment is understood as a production of space on all scales, from the domestic interiors, through urban spaces, to landscapes. Extending the focus of the book from “architecture” to “space of jouissance” within a transdicisplinary perspective, Lefebvre opens the discussion towards questions of subversive spaces, rhythmanalysis of the body, and pedagogy of senses. He proposes a Marxist take of architecture different from and alternative to the voice of Manfredo Tafuri, which since then has dominated critical architectural theory and history. Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment not only fundamentally changes our view on French and international architecture culture after 1968 but it gives new impulses for today’s debates about architecture and the urban society.Less

Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment

Henri Lefebvre

Published in print: 2014-05-01

The French Marxist philosopher and sociologist Henri Lefebvre meditates on the relationship between jouissance, space, and architecture. Commissioned as a part of a study on tourist new towns in Spain, the book identifies spaces devoted to pleasure, enjoyment, sensuality, and desire as sites where the possibilities for a society moving beyond Fordism are manifested. In order to study these possibilities, architecture needs to be redefined as a mode of imagination rather than being restricted to a specialized practice or a collection of monuments. Taking the practices of habitation as the starting point of the inquiry, Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment is understood as a production of space on all scales, from the domestic interiors, through urban spaces, to landscapes. Extending the focus of the book from “architecture” to “space of jouissance” within a transdicisplinary perspective, Lefebvre opens the discussion towards questions of subversive spaces, rhythmanalysis of the body, and pedagogy of senses. He proposes a Marxist take of architecture different from and alternative to the voice of Manfredo Tafuri, which since then has dominated critical architectural theory and history. Toward an Architecture of Enjoyment not only fundamentally changes our view on French and international architecture culture after 1968 but it gives new impulses for today’s debates about architecture and the urban society.

Lefebvre returns to the basic Marxist distinction between “use” and “exchange value” in order to theorize a possibility of an “economy of jouissance” which accounts for the dynamics of collective use ...
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Lefebvre returns to the basic Marxist distinction between “use” and “exchange value” in order to theorize a possibility of an “economy of jouissance” which accounts for the dynamics of collective use of spaces.Less

Economics

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

Lefebvre returns to the basic Marxist distinction between “use” and “exchange value” in order to theorize a possibility of an “economy of jouissance” which accounts for the dynamics of collective use of spaces.

In a transhistorical perspective, Lefebvre revisits spaces devoted to the body, from the Roman thermae, through the Gupta temples and Renaissance urban spaces, to the designs by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux ...
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In a transhistorical perspective, Lefebvre revisits spaces devoted to the body, from the Roman thermae, through the Gupta temples and Renaissance urban spaces, to the designs by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Charles Fourier, and theorizes the tools available to the architect for the creation of the spaces of jouissance.Less

Architecture

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

In a transhistorical perspective, Lefebvre revisits spaces devoted to the body, from the Roman thermae, through the Gupta temples and Renaissance urban spaces, to the designs by Claude-Nicolas Ledoux and Charles Fourier, and theorizes the tools available to the architect for the creation of the spaces of jouissance.

Lefebvre summarizes the main concepts introduced in the book and embraces the architectural project as the leverage to rethink everyday life beyond its premises of post-war modernization, in ...
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Lefebvre summarizes the main concepts introduced in the book and embraces the architectural project as the leverage to rethink everyday life beyond its premises of post-war modernization, in particular the division between work and non-work.Less

Conclusions (Injunctions)

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

Lefebvre summarizes the main concepts introduced in the book and embraces the architectural project as the leverage to rethink everyday life beyond its premises of post-war modernization, in particular the division between work and non-work.

This chapter explores the reshaping of symbolic thought in nineteenth-century England. It discusses how the scientific disciplines, the arts, philosophy, and advertising mapped the very fabric of ...
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This chapter explores the reshaping of symbolic thought in nineteenth-century England. It discusses how the scientific disciplines, the arts, philosophy, and advertising mapped the very fabric of thought and gradually learned to control it. Architects became only a fraction of those who started to design lived reality. Buildings and cities were included in the category of mutable constructs that could explore the same issues probed by viewing devices and mass media. In this way, architecture was aligned with forces that succeeded in developing permanently ductile modes of symbolic thought—the foundation of the market economy and the culture of consumerism.Less

Technologies of Thoughtin Victorian England

Andrzej Piotrowski

Published in print: 2011-05-11

This chapter explores the reshaping of symbolic thought in nineteenth-century England. It discusses how the scientific disciplines, the arts, philosophy, and advertising mapped the very fabric of thought and gradually learned to control it. Architects became only a fraction of those who started to design lived reality. Buildings and cities were included in the category of mutable constructs that could explore the same issues probed by viewing devices and mass media. In this way, architecture was aligned with forces that succeeded in developing permanently ductile modes of symbolic thought—the foundation of the market economy and the culture of consumerism.

This chapter addresses the question of who is the subject of postmodern architecture. Theorists consider the processes of subject formation of postmodern architecture both at the individual and the ...
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This chapter addresses the question of who is the subject of postmodern architecture. Theorists consider the processes of subject formation of postmodern architecture both at the individual and the group level as central to comprehending postmodernity's scope and effects. Architecture proper has been taken up in this context largely as a set of symptomatic objects known as consumer society. But correlating the subject of architecture to consumer society is insufficient to take a fuller measure of architecture's presumed function as a cipher for an emergent world-historical conjuncture. To resolve this issue, this chapter presents Jacques Rancière's notion of a “distribution of the sensible” that includes, excludes, and arranges objects and phenomena as elements of aesthetic and historical experience.Less

Subjects : Mass Customization

Reinhold Martin

Published in print: 2010-10-29

This chapter addresses the question of who is the subject of postmodern architecture. Theorists consider the processes of subject formation of postmodern architecture both at the individual and the group level as central to comprehending postmodernity's scope and effects. Architecture proper has been taken up in this context largely as a set of symptomatic objects known as consumer society. But correlating the subject of architecture to consumer society is insufficient to take a fuller measure of architecture's presumed function as a cipher for an emergent world-historical conjuncture. To resolve this issue, this chapter presents Jacques Rancière's notion of a “distribution of the sensible” that includes, excludes, and arranges objects and phenomena as elements of aesthetic and historical experience.

Lefebvre postulates a definition of architecture in opposition to urban planning by taking the perspective of habitation and the practices of the inhabitant as the starting point of his inquiry. This ...
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Lefebvre postulates a definition of architecture in opposition to urban planning by taking the perspective of habitation and the practices of the inhabitant as the starting point of his inquiry. This delineates a field of research for the architectural imagination towards a theorizing of pleasure, sensuality, enjoyment, and delight rather than projecting political and economic categories on the architectural operations.Less

The Question

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

Lefebvre postulates a definition of architecture in opposition to urban planning by taking the perspective of habitation and the practices of the inhabitant as the starting point of his inquiry. This delineates a field of research for the architectural imagination towards a theorizing of pleasure, sensuality, enjoyment, and delight rather than projecting political and economic categories on the architectural operations.

The author meditates on the relationship between power, pleasure, and space, exemplified by the paradoxes of the architectural monument; and speculates about its possible alternatives in the post-war ...
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The author meditates on the relationship between power, pleasure, and space, exemplified by the paradoxes of the architectural monument; and speculates about its possible alternatives in the post-war periods.Less

The scope of the inquiry

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

The author meditates on the relationship between power, pleasure, and space, exemplified by the paradoxes of the architectural monument; and speculates about its possible alternatives in the post-war periods.

Lefebvre argues that the project of an architecture, or space, of jouissance must be centered on the body, its rhythms, and the possibility of a “pedagogy” of senses. This argument is developed by ...
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Lefebvre argues that the project of an architecture, or space, of jouissance must be centered on the body, its rhythms, and the possibility of a “pedagogy” of senses. This argument is developed by revisiting literary and architectural precedence of spaces of jouissance, from the Renaissance to the interwar and post-war period.Less

The Quest

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

Lefebvre argues that the project of an architecture, or space, of jouissance must be centered on the body, its rhythms, and the possibility of a “pedagogy” of senses. This argument is developed by revisiting literary and architectural precedence of spaces of jouissance, from the Renaissance to the interwar and post-war period.

In a manner resembling a medieval treatise, Lefebvre offers a range of possible objections to the project of the book–the quest for an architecture of jouissance–and refutes them by proposing ...
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In a manner resembling a medieval treatise, Lefebvre offers a range of possible objections to the project of the book–the quest for an architecture of jouissance–and refutes them by proposing counter-arguments.Less

Objections

Łukasz StanekRobert Bononno

Published in print: 2014-05-01

In a manner resembling a medieval treatise, Lefebvre offers a range of possible objections to the project of the book–the quest for an architecture of jouissance–and refutes them by proposing counter-arguments.